Best Western Hotell Boras Borås

This was a day to visit the Swedish countryside. Per came to get us around 11 and we drove in the pouring rain through Boras to Per's small, but beautiful country house. He had remodeled the whole thing and in retrospect he could have just as easily tore the house down and started from scratch. Per reminds me of Sue's dad Richard in his ability to fix and build ...

En Vårmiddag. I Stockholm finns det en gata som heter Götgatan. På Götegatan ligger det ett hus. I huset finns det en våning. I våningen finns det ett matrum. I matrummet finns det ett matbord. Vid matbordet sitter Åke Forsberg och hans fru och ...

... are now going on to Holland, she was a little fire ball, but helped alot, we hope. We are going to tour the Volvo factory tomorrow which should be fun to see and pick up the car! Driving so far with Micke was interesting so now we are thinking we are in for it. Not sure where we are going tomorrow after the factory but hopefully there is a bed and our last chance to see pretty Swedish ladies. Might not be by a computer for a while but will keep in touch.

... was hilarious, especially because he swore like a sailor and always had a chuckle about something. They offered us the use of their car if we wanted to go anywhere and we stayed in a big trailor out behind the house. They taught us heaps of stuff about Shetland ponies, of which they are very into (the house is decorated in a lot of pony parifinalia and books), and about Sweden in general. They were very insistent they were not ...

... and recollected our the long hike and the snow showers when we got to the mountain top. Then this past January I stayed with him and his wife Birgitta at their home in Fostorp, about an hour's drive north of Gothenburg. We went to a little park area and had some coffee which gave opportunity for Bruce Anderson and him to get to know one another. Stanley was born in the United States in Walnut, Illinois ...

... curries, and mango lassies and shared a nan bread filled with spices and a kind of home made cheese (kinda like tofu but tastier).

Gabrielle picked up cake baking supplies while Dan watched the bags. She couldn't read the labels to find what she needed, but a young Swedish couple saw her in distress and took her around the store and found her everything she needed. Time had slipped away from us, so we ...

... foreign place to me because I know nothing about the country except that my ancestors descended from the region and that the Vikings originated from the perceived mass of ice and snow. However when I got off the plane, in the smallest airport known to mankind, I found myself in a warmer climate than that of Scotland and almost no snow on the ground. Did I get on the right plane back in Glasgow? Was I still in a daze when I was wondering around the ...

... a lot of traditional Swedish dishes. Tonight was a special sort of shrimp that is harvested during spawning season, so each shrimp has it's eggs attached. I guess it's kind of like shrimp caviar. You peel them and put them on toasted bread with mayonaise, dill and lemon. Very good. We followed it up with Sardine pizza. Last week we had Moose pizza.

After about a week in Sweden I am saying goodbye today to my 12 relatives including my parents and brother. This has been a great week with more incredible people opening up their home and being more than generous with every aspect of their lives. In the past couple of days I was able to see great things such as the ancient rock carvings from around 1500 bc we saw yesterday and the fishing town of Smögen. I have tasted new and unusual things like smoked deer and dried ...

... was awesome. Our cousin Andreas who is the same age as me, took Brian and I out bar hopping and then to a club where the band "The Ark" was playing. I've never heard of them before but apparently they were huge in Sweden and the place filled to capacity really quick. They ended up being a really good band and put on an extravagant show. They almost reminded me of the Darkness. But the best part of the place was definetely the ...